Search HATSHEPSUT PROJECT

Sunday, 31 July 2011

Please feel free to join the group. Feel free to start topics, make comments and generally have your say. Although i am the Admin, the intention is to find as many like minded people to discuss Hatshepsut with.

As with any "open groups" i hope that only those with a real interest have their say. I will try not to lead discussions, as i am at a stage where i need the thoughts of others.

It will be a test. If we get bogged down with spammers, then i will do my bit. If discussions arise which are healthy, then it will be a permanent fixture. I haven't linked this blogs posts yet, but that can be done soon if i (or others) feel it necessary or complimentary.

I was fortunate enough to have had the pleasure of meeting Stephen this year. He was in my home town talking about the Petrie Museum Collection and its wonderful founder Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie.

The wonderful lecture has fuelled my own interests in the museum and its founder.

Stephen I would describe as softly spoken, passionate, extremely well informed and truly an inspiring lecturer. From the start i found every sentence littered with factual information which i just had to record, for future viewing. I actually found that i wrote very little. Not due to anything other than the fact i didn't want to look away from Stephen's presentation (complete with a gremlin-filled laptop, which tried and failed to throw Stephen from his trail) in case i missed something.

The video is a very short introduction to Stephen Quirke, The Petrie Museum and the duties of a Curator.

Saturday, 30 July 2011

Although the finished database will look different to this, I thought i would give a tiny snapshot of how the information is being recorded. These are the first 6 fields on the database. There are currently 12 fields, so only half of them will be displayed in this post. The links have not been added to this example, which will appear in the "Item Number" field. Note the simplicity of the recording of data. This is due to the fact that for this particular museum, i will be linking directly to their descriptions of the separate artefacts online.

These have been added to the database, as too the following possible origin:

"Although neither of these beads seems to have been found in situ (110), the two versions of the inscription they carry would perhaps indicate that they, and a number of published parallels (111), had originally been intended for the foundation deposits of the Hathor (p. 388) shrine"

Even the very small artifacts have information to be gained from them. Foundation deposits can tell when certain elements of a temple were erected, by whom (overseer) and also the commissioner. Fortunately, Hatshepsut left many and these, which are housed in museums all over the world today.

"The tomb is known to contain an inscription relating to the role of Hatshepsut as a regent in relation to her step-son Tuthmosis III. The inscription mentions how king Tuthmosis II had gone "forth to heaven, having mingled with the gods." His son Tuthmosis III is then said to have "stood in his place as King of the Two Lands, while Hatshepsut "settled the affairs of the Two Lands"

Source:
O'Connor, David and Cline, Eric H. Thutmose III: A New Biography University of Michigan Press. 2006 ISBN 978-04721146721.

Thursday, 28 July 2011

Its great to see progress. I caught this on Flickr and am now following CFEETK, so will hopefully hear about future reports. Note the Cartouche (Prenomen) of Hatshepsut (9th photo) and Cartouche of Neferure (11th photo).

Monday, 25 July 2011

Looking at the books in my possession and looking online - there maybe an issue with (Hatshepsut finds at) Highclere Castle Estate. There are a number of finds still housed at Highclere and others which have moved on. I have yet to find any items which are linked to Hatshepsut.

Deir el Bahri is featured, but Deir el Bahri is a very large area, covering three mortuary temples, later tombs and more. Djeser Djeseru (Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple) as far as i can tell is only covered in a set of watercolour faxcimilies/ pictures drawn by Howard Carter. I will make further enquiries, but my suspicions are that these are copies of the originals.

Agyptisches Museum der Universität Leipzig (6020).
Leipzig University Egyptian Museum (I hope the translation is correct) has at least one object which dates to the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, but i will look a bit deeper into their collections for further items.

The artifact in question is a block statue of Ruiu, found at Aniba with another statue (i have yet to locate the second statue) in the tomb of Ruiu (Aniba, tomb S66).

"Of Nubian decent, Ruiu lived in (modern day) Aniba (in lower Nubia). He served as deputy to the Egyptian viceroy, or King's Son."

the above information (in different format) can be found below,

- Hatshepsut, from Queen to Pharaoh, Egypt and Nubia, Conflict with the Kingdom of Kush, W. Vivian Davies, page 57, catalogue number 27.

The EMC is the latest museum added to the growing database. It's been a headache as they do not have a dedicated online database such as the Petrie Museum, British Museum, MMA, etc.

So far 100 items have been recorded for the Egyptian Museum. That number might double once ALL items have been recorded, but finding these items is problematic. It took a full day yesterday to locate the 100 items- some of which do not have acquisition numbers/ museum numbers, some have a very general description so is difficult to obtain the quality of information which fit the database template.

I am working overtime on this museum, pulling resources from everywhere i can find them- Porter and Moss, Flickr, Google, Wiki, Global Egyptian Museum, Hatshepsut from Queen to Pharaoh exhibition book/reports, etc.

I hope that the new museum (GEM) at Giza will do me a huge favour and have an online catalogue. I will even volunteer to help them do this. For now there is a lot of research to be done for this one museum. If any of you have any ideas which may help, please feel free to contact me.

Swansea Museum's website (Egypt Centre) has a number of photos taken between the years 1915-1917 by L.Sgt. Johnston of Carmarthen. One such photograph is of a soldier standing on the second (middle) terrace at Deir el Bahri.

Long before much of the restoration work we see the benefits of today, the upper terrace appears almost too be non-existent. It is there, just in thousands of fragments, yet to be reconstructed. The second photo, underneath the black and white photo shows the upper terrace proudly reconstructed, as with the stairs leading up to it.

Photographs like these are extremely valuable to researchers. I wish to thank those at Swansea Museum for making the above photo, plus these photographs of Egypt during 1915-1917.

Progress is still being made on the Hatshepsut Project Museum Database. The following museums have now been added and their artifacts have been recorded:

Alexandria National Museum

Ashmolean

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Bournemouth Natural Science Society

British Museum

Brooklyn Museum

Cleveland Museum of Art

(University of) Pennsylvania Museum

Petrie Museum

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum

Royal Ontario Museum

(The) Vatican Museums

Walters Art Museum

There is still a long way to go. The plan is to keep returning to the museum collections which are available online to check the completeness of the data captured. From the information already added to the database, further sites (locations of Hatshepsut- related discoveries) have been recorded which i haven't mentioned so far on the blog. I will start reporting on these this weekend.

Monday, 18 July 2011

Small Size Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut
Originally uploaded by peterjr1961
Recently some of my family members went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Knowing little about my research, but knowing about my interest in Ancient Egypt they intended to grab a few photos, which they did. GREAT (i thought), until realising they didn't make it past the Dinosaur collection.

I guess it will be up to me to visit the Met. and grab all the photographs i can of the many Hatshepsut related artifacts on display.

Fortunately, peterjr1961 has a series of photos on Flickr, including the one in this post. One of a series of kneeling statues of Hatshepsut (of similar style).

Sunday, 17 July 2011

I have only attributed one item to the Royal Ontario Museum so far. The item is a wall cast of a section of the Deir el Bahri Punt Expedition.

Al Ahram Weekly (Issue No 60, October 2002) provides the information which i have been looking for on how the cast made and how it ended up at the ROM. It seems that the Metropolitan Museum of Art comissioned a Mr Charles Trick Currelly (founder of the Royal Ontarion Museum) to copy the full Punt Expedition. This he did:

"He taught his Egyptian workmen a technique he had learned from Petrie at Abydos using tin foil and beeswax, and managed to persuade a group of visiting Torontonians to fund a second copy for the future museum -- a museum which had by that time gained momentum in his mind, if not in reality. The second copy of the Punt Expedition was duly created and remains one of the ROM's most impressive displays, a popular teaching point for the museum's educational programmes"

Saturday, 16 July 2011

The Petrie Museum example is now completed. So far 70 items have been listed. As the database will not be visible publicly for a while, i wish to share a single entry (below) which will be the format of all items listed on the database:

Museum: Petrie Museum, London, England

Item/ Acquisition Number: UC14351

Object: Statuette (Djehuty)

Type: Seated

Material: Limestone

Link to Hatshepsut: Djehuty, Cartouches of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III

Origination:

Findspot: Deir el Bahri

Discovery Details:

Acquisition Details: “Acquired by Flinders Petrie”

Acquisition Date: 1887

Photograph: Permissions not yet obtained

The finished database will have hyperlinks on the following fields:

Museum

Item/Acquisition Number

Photograph

Any gaps which appear, as with in the above example- where we have "origination" left blank will be down to me having no knowledge on this information. ALL gaps will be filled in should that information become available to me through my own research or by leads and information provided by those who can help (the database will be made publicly available as read only and obviously will be free of charge to use as a research tool and information gathering excercise available to EVERYONE). I will be the only person who will have the "EDIT" option, unless i obtain help (which is highly likely if Wikipedia is to be the platform).

Please add any comments you wish to share with me. The previous comment by Tim was very useful and gave me the motivation to redesign and complete the above template and to complete (for now) the data entry involved in the Petrie Museum section of the database. I will now add the above template to the next few museums and see how it looks.

Thanks to Tim for making the valid point that the database should include ALL items which are associated with the reign (and lifetime) of Hatshepsut. Initially i "weeded out" all items which cannot be directly associated with Hatshepsut, even though they are dated within her reign/ lifetime.

As i am at the earliest stage of the database i realise it would be wise to have a "test museum". That museum will be the Petrie Museum. I will spend this afternoon tinkering around with the spreadsheet design and re-entering in those objects which have been overlooked or left out previously.

Thursday, 14 July 2011

Hapuseneb served as High Priest of Amun during the reign of Hatshepsut and has left behind a tomb, statues and artifacts which allow us a small glimpse in the background of Hatshepsut's life. I will discuss the artifacts and statues at a later date.

The information provided by the above link actually highlights an issue with my Hatshepsut Project Museum Database. Many of Hapuseneb's artifacts do NOT mention Hatshepsut, but we DO know he was active during the time of Hatshepsut. Do I include these artifacts? If i do, i feel a can of worms opening up in my face, but if i don't - am i depriving the database of information? This is a real concern.

Here are some beautiful Plates available free to download from Heidelberg University. Very well drawn plans and copied wall reliefs from Deir El Bahri. Plate 3 shows a fantistic reconstruction of Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple. Please be sure to mention Heidelberg University if you use this information in the future.

I am now on Twitter. If you feel this could be something for you, my profile name is Hatshepstu.

For now, i will simply spend a few weeks finding others' to follow. Already the Petrie Museum, KV64 (Kate Phizackerley), Egyptological (Kate Phiz and Andrea Byrnes) and Egyptology News Network (Paul Broughton) are being followed, but there are MANY more sites which i intend to follow.

New to Twitter, I don't know how to use it to benefit the Hatshepsut Project. I plan to spend some time over the coming weekend to start Tweeting. I dont know if i can just use it for linking to posts here.

Anyone with any early tips, please let me know. For now I am out of my confort zone, so all advice is welcomed.

My number 1 priority for the coming weeks will be the Hatshepsut Project Museum database. I mentioned previously that i have around 250 entries on the database to date (mainly the Petrie Museum and British Museum).

The pace the blog is picking up is daunting, but really exciting. I have a keen eye on expansion and have many ideas which i hope will become reality. Facebook is one such idea. Already the Osiride Head Project and further mini- projects have been put on ice for the time-being. I have the information, but not the time to put it all together. That will come.

A quick update is from the Metroplitan Museum of Art. Having read their terms and conditions, this blog will be able to fully utilise the photographic material from the MMA website. I have been relying on Flickr which has been an excellent resource, but i have to think about the bigger picture, which is the museum database.

Realistically i need to contact ALL museums of interest, websites, blogs to ensure that everyone is happy for me to use their work. This all takes time. I've lobbied to my local council to increase the number of hours in the day to 48, but have yet to receive a response!

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Fortunately the issues with the blog comments and followers has been resolved for now. Welcome all newcomers and hello again to those who have been following the blog a while.

I am currently feeling under the weather, so am struggling to do my usual volume of research, but i hope to be back on my feet sooner rather than later.

In the meantime the above video, as the post title suggests is a short video on the current conditions of tomb KV20. You will see without issue why this tomb is not open to tourists and how difficult it is to get a film crew in and out safely.

When the video pops up, note the list of short videos on the right hand side of the page. Click onthe KV20 video and it will load up immediately.

Monday, 11 July 2011

I have now created the database which will list (eventually) all items i am able to locate. So far the following museums have been added:

British MuseumPetrie MuseumCleveland Museum of ArtAshmoleanRoyal OntarioAlexandria National Museum

This is despite the list i posted originally.

Approximately 250 items are now stored with thousands to follow. The artifacts listed have given me a number of issues which i didn't expect- issues which have to be resolved in order to even think about adding further artifacts.

1. Attachment to Hatsheput. Some of the items on the databases of the above museums are attached to Hatshepsut for a variation of reasons. These include Hatshepsut being depicted, mentioned, dedicated to or for Hatshepsut and items belonging to those in hatshepsut's family and her court.

Other items are stylistically from the period of the New Kingdom when Hatshepsut reigned either as Pharaoh or as Regent. These items do not mention Hatshepsut by name, by title or by any other means. Some of these items appeared on the Hatshepsut from Queen to Pharaoh exhibition and do provide general datable clues to the time of Hatshepsut.

I have decided NOT to include any items which cannot be classed as either belonging to, commissioned by, mentioning, dedicated to or for Hatshepsut. Many, many artifacts have been recovered in and around the Temple of Hatshepsut (for example) which are from later periods. These will NOT be included on the database. There may be exceptions to the rule, but for now a blanket rule is applied.

Items found which include Senenmut, Djehuty and all the various people who make up the background will be included if the artifact in question either mentions Hatshepsut in some way or can be linked to Hatshepsut's reign clearly. Neferure, Neferubity, Wadjmose, etc will be included as they are linked without doubt to Hatshepsut. Thutmose I, II and III will be included if the item/ artifacts link to Hatshepsut.

(I'm not sure if that is particularly clear, but i simply wish to weed out those items which will not help me or others when looking at Hatshepsut's footprints).

2. Fakes/ Forgeries. For now i will include these (labelled clearly). There are very few and i will make a final decision based on the final numbers.

3. Many collections do not appear online. These will require seperate research and enquiries, which i will do- just not right now.

4. Photos. Large numbers of photos are not available. Again this is a headache which i will tackle once i am putting the finishing touches to the database. I would like to add AT LEAST one photo of each, but i may have to get creative.

5. Descriptions. Whilst spending a great deal of time copying and pasting descriptions, i realised the best thing to do here is simply add Hyperlinks. This will be an issue for items which are not displayed by museums and photograph collections online.

These are a taster of what i am currently looking at. I will give myself the next 2 days off with the family (and work of course), as the British Museum and Petrie collections took most of the weekend.

Friday, 8 July 2011

Just to say that i expect to be able to complete the Osiride Head Project this year (which is much sooner than first thought. All obvious heads have been recorded, but i am bow looking at the Osiride Heads that are not displayed in museums and Deir el Bahri. More to come, shorty I hope.

Photographs are always an issue and has slowed down progress slightly, but they are not completely necessary at this stage.

TT71- Tomb of Senenmut is discussed in detail on Maat-Ka-Ra-Hatschepsut. A number of pages clearly illustrate the finds in and around the tomb itself and there are a number of excellent quality photographs and diagrams. Excellent descriptions of the features of the tomb itself are given, including what's left of the decoration.

A point worth mentioning is that there are a number of Hatshepsut artifacts which i have yet to report on, which are mentioned in the above linked pages of tomb TT71. Some of these i have looked into at some length and some are relatively new to me. These will be mentioned in the future as seperate posts and will be included (eventually) in a database of objects outside of museum collections, when i get around to it (unlikely to be in 2011 due to other Hatshepsut projects i am working on).

I mentioned a while back that the book "Hatshepsut From Queen to Pharaoh" is my bible. Maat-Ka-Ra is my online Hatshepsut bible. Not only is the site remarkably informative, but Dr. Leser is a very accomodating man, who has done more for my understanding of Hatshepsut than any other single resource.

It is no surprise that i have extensively linked to his site from this blog.

Monday, 4 July 2011

As reported in an earlier post, i have experienced isses with the Hatshepsut Project on Wikiversity, launched by Anneke Bart. The fact is that i get confused with the coding involved in posting additional items. This is purely an issue on my part, but it means i have not yet added to Anneke's work. Apoligies again, Anneke - i will get through this, but i may need my wife on hand as she is FAR more patient than i am

Hatshepsut Project has a number of aims. Cataloging all the Hatshepsut finds noted within the project are now a priority. For now i am beginning to collect information on various museums' Hatshepsut artifacts:

The information being gathered will be prepared on an Excel (test) spreadsheet (yep, that's my level i'm afraid!). Here i will log every item, provide links, descriptions, etc. This information will then be transferred to Wikiversity at a later date.

Well, that's the plan at least. I know my way around Excel- or at least i hope i do !

Saturday, 2 July 2011

Luxor Times has this article about the Grand Re-opening of the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor, due to take place some time in October 2011.

The Avenue, when re-opened may help in some way to attract much needed tourism back to Upper Egypt. Walking in the footsteps of the Pharaohs will prove difficult to resist.

The Avenue itself was originally constructed by Hatshepsut to connect the temples of Luxor and Karnak on the East Bank (a 2.7 km route) . There were further developments by later pharaohs but until recently a large section lay under more modern constructions, which have now been removed to reveal the route which be walked by millions of tourists in the coming years.

The article states that Hatshepsut built 6 chapels to Amun- Re along the route and this is mentioned in inscriptions of the Red Chapel. None of these can be seen in their original form today, although traces of Hatshepsuts work has been docomented.

"Remains of Queen Hatshepsut’s chapels, which were reused by kingNectanebo I in the construction of sphinxes, have been found along with remains of Roman wine factories and a huge cistern for water"